If you were looking for a poster child for the strength of UC San Diego’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, the company Nanome would be a strong contender.Founded by Steven McCloskey ’15, Keita Funakawa ’16, Edgardo Leija ’14 and Samuel Hessenauer ’16 in 20
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When the Trump administration in 2018 unveiled a sweeping crackdown on economic espionage by the Chinese government, advocacy groups and academics raised concerns the effort could result in racial profiling and have a chilling effect on collaborations.
Then last week, federal prosecutors abruptly dropped charges against five Chinese researchers at U.S. universities accused of visa fraud, fueling fresh doubts about the China Initiative and bringing new calls for the Justice Department to end or revamp it.
The dismissals of the cases, which targeted scientists at such universities as UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Francisco and Stanford, represent an embarrassing setback in the federal government’s effort to combat Chinese economic espionage, which authorities say costs the U.S. economy at least $600 billion a year.
Credit: University of California
A team of researchers designed and manufactured a new sodium-ion conductor for solid-state sodium-ion batteries that is stable when incorporated into higher-voltage oxide cathodes. This new solid electrolyte could dramatically improve the efficiency and lifespan of this class of batteries. A proof of concept battery built with the new material lasted over 1000 cycles while retaining 89.3% of its capacity a performance unmatched by other solid-state sodium batteries to date.
Researchers detail their findings in the Feb. 23, 2021 issue of
Nature Communications.
Solid state batteries hold the promise of safer, cheaper, and longer lasting batteries. Sodium-ion chemistries are particularly promising because sodium is low-cost and abundant, as opposed to the lithium required for lithium-ion batteries, which is mined at a high environmental cost. The goal is to build batteries that can be used in large-scale grid energy storage applications, especiall